The stations at this time were [numbers are miles from Brooklyn]:

     In 1849 the railroad owned fifteen locomotives and twenty two passenger coaches. There were twelve mail and baggage cars and one hundred and twenty-eight freight cars. At this time the trip from Greenport to Brooklyn was performed by the Boston train in three and one quarter hours daily [152 years later, best time--two hours, 36 minutes for a slighlty shorter run--Ed.], making but two stops, to replenish fuel and water. One of these stops was at St. George's Manor, the other at Farmingdale. Five trains were run each way daily, one a through passenger and one through freight. One was turned back at Yaphank, another at Farmingdale. Another train ran only to Jamaica, and stopped at any place on the way to receive or discharge passengers. The fare from Brooklyn to Greenport was $1.75 on the accommodation train and $2.00 on the Boston express.

     For several years the Long Island Railroad enjoyed the height of this Boston traffic. It carried the mails and many passengers. The road, under George B. Fisk the President, seemed to be prospering greatly. Before the road was built the farmers had been loath to give the road a right of way, thinking that the company was attempting to wrest part of their barren land away from them for a mere song. But when they actually saw the trains rushing madly through the fields, they exclaimed in wonder, "The half of it was not told." To them it seemed that the trains moved so rapidly that the faces of the passengers in the car windows as they rushed by could not be distinguished as human, celestial or divine, though it is quite certain that they never moved faster than twenty five miles an hour, a speed which, today, is considered very moderate indeed.
     There was much excitement at first due to the forest fires set by sparks from the locomotives. The engines of that day were wood burners, which gave off a shower of sparks as they shot through the country. When the season was dry, very often entire townships would be ravaged by an immense fire, which would destroy all the timber in an area of many square miles. As the cutting of timber was often the only means the people in those parts had of existing, there were many threats to tear up the rails and wreck the trains. But the wiser heads of the communities pointed out that they would only be endangering the lives of innocent passengers thereby, so that none of these threats were actually carried out. At first the railroad ran trains on Sunday, which also displeased the pious people of Long Island. But when the Boston service was inaugurated in 1844, not a wheel on the entire road turned on the Sabbath, which won the favor of many.
     

©2001 The Composing Stack Inc. All right reserved